Mububban wrote:I've read that riding fasted first thing in the day can help to burn fat. Skip breakfast, do a ride at moderate intensity (?), then eat a normal breakfast afterwards.

Is that about right?

You might lose some weight with short-term fasting (~12 hours) but your body will adapt and the weight loss will stop if that's the only thing you do. You can vary your fasting and see if it works or not. For example, 16 hours fasting, 8 hours eating, or 12/12. This one is easy to do because you can sleep 8 hours while you fast. You can try 24 hours on the fast, 24 hours off for 4-6 or 8 weeks. Tough gig this one.

Couple of months ago I lost 12 kilos in 3 months by changing my riding routine and yes, prolonging overnight fast. I wrote about it on my blog.

After that, I got stuck on 78 kilos but wanted to see if I can lose more. About 3 weeks ago I went into ketosis and am now losing about 1 kilo a week. If you want to lose weight and are not racing, this is how you do it.

Slighting off tangent, but my experience with weightloss is that cardio type exercises are not as good as they first appear. There seems to be some "resistance" by the body. I struggle to put this into clear words but my gut feel that as someone in my mid-40s, biologically, high cardio loading exercises put your body under a high calorie burn rate, and your body fights back hard by saying I wont let you go so far with the calorie loss and mentally signals you to compensate and thus eat more. Its easy to say why don't you just eat back what you lose in calories minus a bit - but I get the feeling the body does its own internal calculations and more or less "net" out or even over compensate with the calorie replenishment.

I hope you get the jist.

Conversely, when I did body weight training - working out in the gym but mainly using body weight resistance plus some weights and a smaller cardio component my weight loss, fat ratio and body appearance looked in the best shape - including the waistline which was the hardest part to get rid of.

I'm not an expert in this, so flame away - its just some of my own experience.

BugsBunny wrote:Slighting off tangent, but my experience with weightloss is that cardio type exercises are not as good as they first appear. There seems to be some "resistance" by the body. I struggle to put this into clear words but my gut feel that as someone in my mid-40s, biologically, high cardio loading exercises put your body under a high calorie burn rate, and your body fights back hard by saying I wont let you go so far with the calorie loss and mentally signals you to compensate and thus eat more.

Yeah for sure this happens which is why it's hard to lose weight for most people. You can counter this by either riding way more than you eat or mental fortitude to not overeat. For example how many people can honestly say they are comfortable riding bonked? I've done it a handful of times (worst was 1.5 hours in a forest when I missed a pit stop) and it's not nice.

However, morning rides are good for that provided you don't go stuff your face with the work muffins.

@BugsBunny: Absolutely, the body signals with hormones when it is supplied with too many or not enough calories. Similarly, when your body fat levels change. Grossly over simplifying things, but these signals regulate your appetite in the short term (insulin and ghrelin) and long term (leptin) as do things like stress, lack of sleep, circadian rhythm, etc.

Ultimately, weight loss is made in the kitchen because as your activity level ramps up and/or your caloric intake goes down, your appetite is regulated to try to maintain homeostasis - you still need to fight the urges of your raging appetite to stay in a caloric deficit. That said, with limitless training hours you can buy yourself a bit of lee-way to your diet - if i'm riding 15hr+ training weeks then I'm averaging nearly 2000cal deficit per day and it takes a very concerted effort to eat enough calories to maintain weight at that level of activity.

ValleyForge wrote:The sleepiness is not as common in asians. This includes sub-continental Indians too.

I only know it is most prominent in caucasians & negros.

I'm half asian / half caucasian so maybe I'll just take a 15 minute power nap in the afternoon

Really interesting - Asian skeletal muscle mass is significantly lower than other races so the skinny-fat shape is a real phenomenon. Your physiology tends to put building muscle-bulk at the lower end of the priority list compared with belly fat. Having said that, what I've said still holds true.

Mind providing scientific references for all your racial statements? Interested to learn.I always thought muscle is built based on training and diet.

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